Morecambe dad guilty of murdering his baby son

Kane Kennedy, 20, was found guilty by a unanimous jury of killing baby Oskar Jobey-Kennedy by smothering him at a flat in Morecambe.

Tia Jobey outside Preston Crown Court.

Oskar was found to have a catalogue of non-accidental injuries to his face, throat and genitals.

A post-mortem revealed he died from smothering but that other injuries had been inflicted upon him prior to his death.

“The level of injuries inflicted on this defenceless child by Kennedy are frankly obscene,” said Detective Chief Inspector Jon Holmes of Lancashire Police.

“It is almost impossible to understand the mindset of someone who could do this to any child, let alone their own son.

“I would like to thank the jury for their careful consideration of what must have been a hugely distressing case and I welcome the decision they have made today.

“My thanks also go to the Crown Prosecution Service and counsel for their presentation of the case to the court and finally my thoughts remain with the wider family of baby Oskar who have been through so much over the last year. I hope that this verdict can offer them some comfort as they try to move on with their lives.”

Kennedy had denied murder and originally told police, paramedics and doctors he had fallen asleep on the sofa with his son and woken to find the baby unresponsive.

He then changed his story and blamed his girlfriend Tia Jobey for the baby’s death.

The jury, in finding him guilty, rejected both of Kennedy’s versions of events.

Instead they agreed with the prosecution that at some time during the night Kennedy had forcibly got hold of the baby’s testes causing injuries and then pushed his fingers into Oskar’s mouth, possibly in a bid to silence him, and put his hand over his mouth deliberately smothering the child.

During the trial at Preston Crown Court, the jury heard chilling Facebook messages in which Oskar’s mother Jobey said she feared for the tot’s safety if Kennedy did not stop smoking cannabis.

On September 24 2015, a week before Kennedy murdered his son, she said: “You throw him around like a toy, suffocate him, stick your finger down his fucking throat, and he’s always in the middle of our arguments and fights.

“I’m sick of having to pretend he’s just bumped himself when really it’s you.

“His arm...his lip...twice?

“You suffocate him Kane, that’s child abuse.”

Another message read: “One day it’s going to go too far and he’s going to get hurt and it will be my fault for not leaving you in the first place, when I knew what would happen.”

She said she feared Kennedy would “come home and suffocate our son because you can’t be arsed with him, because you want weed”.

Kennedy was under order that he should not stay overnight at the flat Oskar and Jobey shared in Morecambe.

But after arguing over his cannabis use, Kennedy spent the night with Jobey, 19, and their son, sleeping on the sofas in the living room as the bedroom was undergoing refurbishment.

Paramedics were called to the flat on Balmoral Road shortly before 9am on October 1 2015 after a report that seven month-old Oskar had been found unresponsive.

The baby was taken to the Royal Lancaster Infirmary but was pronounced dead shortly afterwards.

Oskar had been identified as a child in need following a domestic incident during which Kennedy damaged the flat and assaulted Jobey in July 2015.

Jobey pleaded guilty to causing or allowing the death of a child, after the court heard she allowed Kennedy to stay at the flat - against a formal order she had signed with social workers.

Jobey was jailed for 30 months earlier this week.

Mr Justice Davis, sentencing, said to Jobey: “It is quite apparent that you were fully aware of what he was capable of. That is plain from the material that the jury have heard, and I have seen, and from evidence of course you authored - the series of text messages, particularly on September 24, when you were warning him of his future behaviour.

“You had identified occasions in the past that he had suffocated Oskar. He put his hand over Oskar’s mouth. He had shoved his fingers down Oskar’s throat. Those are the two things that immediately happened before Oskar died.

“You knew that was something that could happen and had happened, but yet you did nothing.

“Presciently you have said in your own text ‘One day he is going to get hurt and it will be my fault and not leaving you in the first place when I knew what would happen’.

“I am told, and I accept, that you now bitterly regret not leaving him and not removing Oskar from his clutches. You have learned a bitter lesson.”